Time Regained
by blacktop
Summary: Joss Carter struggles to recover her footing after an emotional dispute with Reese. This story is a direct sequel to the story, "Swann's Way."


**Time Regained**

_Author's Note: This story follows directly on the events described in "Swann's Way."_

_10:35 a.m._

Carter fidgeted with the diamond studs in her ears.

She had slept with them in place the night before, not her usual practice, and now she was paying the price: itchy lobes, a pounding headache, and tiny scratches where the backings had raked against her tender skin.

O.K., maybe the headache was due to the argument with John, not to the damn earrings.

She hadn't felt like coming into work at all, but the flow of the morning routine had propelled her through the tough hours: getting up to make sure Taylor ate something warm for breakfast like oatmeal was important, as was discussing his homework (completed, despite the loud disruption last night), his class schedule, his after school basketball practice, and their plans for a steak dinner.

For a decade, she had worked hard to make life for Taylor as routine and regular – as normal – as possible.

John Reese was a disruption from that central purpose in her life. He was an alluring, entrancing, compelling force, for sure. But a disruption nonetheless.

Now, sitting at her desk in the precinct, massaging her right temple as it throbbed relentlessly, she wondered if she and Taylor could afford that distraction in their lives any more.

She loosened the elastic holding her ponytail and let her hair slip to her shoulders, hoping this would ease the tension above her eyes.

The doughnut deposited by Fusco on her desk before she arrived that morning was shedding its cocoanut sprinkles all over her blotter, leaving little grease spots on the array of photos in her case file.

Looking across at her partner but unable to catch his eye, she wondered if his placid face hid a hurricane of anxieties and concerns too. Or was he really the island of calm he seemed.

Without wanting to, her mind drifted back to the conversation last night.

She could pinpoint the exact moment when the argument with John had gone off the rails.

Dinner was fine, their inconsequential three-way talk focused on Taylor's school day as usual.

Then when he had escaped to his room to finish a social studies assignment, she had turned the conversation to her own work on the case John had "assigned" to her: the murder of the mysterious Alicia Corwin.

John had accepted, with apparent equanimity, her report that she had seen his old CIA nemesis Mark Snow lurking around the medical examiner's office when she went there to investigate the Corwin autopsy.

She knew from his steady gaze that he was listening closely to her account of the brief run-in with Snow, even though his comments consisted mainly of grunts and nods.

But when she mentioned that her encounter with Snow had taken place over six weeks ago, John's entire face suddenly changed.

His brow snapped down into a glower that hooded his eyes. His mouth narrowed to a thin line punctuated by deep furrows on either side. She could see the reddening of his neck and ears and the flash of crimson on his chest just below the notch of his throat.

He was furious. And this time the anger was directed at her.

He kept his voice low, but his words pierced her again and again.

He told her she was an idiot, exposing herself to Snow's threatening presence like that. She had already occupied a front row seat to Snow's murderous treachery, hadn't she learned anything from that? Could she really be stupid enough to believe that snake was going to forget about her, leave her alone, let her escape again?

She fought back and the dispute escalated.

He was patronizing her, discounting her sharp instincts, her investigative skills, her street smarts. Snow didn't frighten her; she could handle him if it came down to a shoot-out.

When John threw the coffee mug, it shattered the black screen of her television.

When he held her by the arms, shaking her until her teeth clicked, it broke her heart a little.

Taylor, rushing into the living room, had witnessed this last scene. He charged at John with a ferocity that frightened her as much as John's heated actions had.

This was not what she wanted in her house and so she had ordered John out.

The headache had stormed in as she lay rigid under her white comforter, the cold and tension pressing down on her. The clock at her bedside clicked through the hours, each second tolling like a hammer behind her eyes.

She knew she had slept only because the alarm shocked her awake.

She could hear Taylor already in the shower, readying himself for another day. When he came into the kitchen, she hugged him hard, but made no further comment on the events of the preceding night.

She didn't know what to say to him or to herself. She didn't know what to think.

Now she was stuck behind her desk, staring at her flip-top notebook, trying to compose a report on the Chin double homicide case she and Fusco had wrapped up two days ago. The ballistics report was simple, the interviews conclusive enough; but she struggled to get the narrative typed onto the screen with any coherency.

Nothing hung together.

xxxxxxxxx

_11:10 a.m._

John appeared like a dark whirlwind in front of her.

She sucked in her breath and stared wordlessly as he pulled a chair from Fusco's desk and sat down facing her. He hunched forward so that his elbows perched on the overcoat folded on his knees and his head was at the same level as hers.

He didn't start speaking right away, just stared at her, his eyes round and unblinking, as if he shared her surprise that he was here in her precinct house in the midst of all these cops.

He was dressed like one of them, a camouflage that concealed him but heightened the feeling of sheer unreality for her.

The standard issue patrolman's uniform was too large for his frame: the navy wool jacket jutted awkwardly away from his shoulders and underneath it the blue-black shirt bloused around his waist. He had knotted the stolen black tie tightly but the collar gaped away from his throat, exposing the cords at the sides of his neck. The peaked hat was big too, sinking over his ears; its stiff shiny brim sloped low over his eyes.

She caught movement at the desk opposite her. Fusco shifted closer to his computer so that she couldn't see his expression, but she was positive he knew John was there facing her.

John started talking then, his words rushing out in a torrent of sounds that swept over her, some making sense, others not.

"I'm sorry, Joss. That's all I came to say. Please hear me."

He put his right hand down on her notebook as if to stop her from resuming her work, then drew it back again.

"I'm sorry I touched you in anger last night, that I hurt you or frightened you. I was so scared, so angry. I just…I just lost it. I never should have grabbed you or shaken you or anything.

"I am just so, so sorry."

She could see his lips trembling with the effort of forming words, his fingers clasping and twisting around each other in the space between his knees as he leaned forward. His voice was low, strained.

The quavering tones sounded faintly over the pounding in her head.

"Joss, this is all on me. I got you into all this. I shouldn't have brought you into all this. And last night I was wrong to take it out on you. I am so sorry. "

He stopped to look down at his hands, plucking at the knuckles as if picking at invisible words tattooed there.

"This is all on me." He repeated the phrase, holding it out like an offering.

She looked once around the room to see if anyone was paying attention to her mid-morning visitor. But no one stopped or even glanced over at them as he continued.

"If you never want to see me again, never work a case with me, I can understand that.

"If you never let me hold you again, Joss, I'm O.K. with that too. Because I deserve whatever you decide."

His voice hitched, but he plunged on.

"But let me talk one last time with Taylor. He should never have had to see what he saw last night. I want to tell him how sorry I am. And how right he was. He defended his mother like a man, like he should. I just want to tell him that.

"If you'll let me."

He puffed out the last phrase and shuddered to a stop. His eyes were glowing in the murky shadow of the hat's deep brim.

xxxxxxxxx

_11:17 a.m._

The silence meant it was her turn to speak.

She felt her heart tumbling in her chest and for a full minute she couldn't speak above its clamor.

When she did find words, they sounded thin and insubstantial in her ears.

"We can talk, John. But not in here." She didn't want to bite her lower lip, but against her will, she did.

He looked startled at the incongruence of her words. But he leaned forward to listen closely to her instructions.

"Go outside. To the park across the street. Wait for me there, John. I'll come out in a minute."

His eyebrows rose, disappearing under the angled brim. His mouth formed an O and his face, which had been white, flushed with relief. She saw his jaw flex with a determination that had been absent just two minutes prior.

She blinked once, to keep the tears back, and so she only felt the rustle of air swirl around her as he left her desk.

She didn't want to keep him waiting out on that park bench in the cold morning, so she rushed to pull her camelhair topper from the coatrack and fling it over her shoulders.

Stopping at the door to the squad room, she looked back at all the men in their drab suits and navy uniforms bustling about their work, oblivious to her turmoil.

She had stepped onto the tiled landing at the top of the stairs when she paused, turned around and re-entered the squad room.

Her thundering headache lifted at last.

"Fusco." She hoped she hadn't barked the name.

Her partner was still crouched behind his monitor, apparently engrossed in an electronic data base.

He focused his eyes on her as she stood next to his desk. But he said nothing, his pudgy fingers poised above the keyboard.

"Lionel." She spoke softly now. "Thank you for this."

He looked down sheepishly, the creases around his eyes deepening, his mouth curving into a grin.

"And don't worry. I'm not planning on shooting him. Not today."

xxxxxxxxx

_11:24 a.m._

Even though she asked Sammy the Turk for extra cups to shield her hands, the searing heat from the two coffees radiated through her leather gloves as she walked from the hot dog stand into the park across the street from the precinct house.

She needed the strong black coffee and she was sure John did too.

With the peaked hat stowed on the bench beside him and the long black overcoat hiding the stolen uniform, he looked more like a civilian, which comforted her.

He was safe out here, she hoped.

She felt his eyes on her as she dodged the traffic and walked swiftly down the path toward the bench where he waited. His gaze was unwavering, measuring each step, drawing her to him.

She could see when the clouds of crystalline fog stopped forming in front of his face and she knew he was holding his breath for her.

She wanted to run to him, but couldn't with the coffee in her hands, with people watching her, with her words still unformed.

When she sat down and handed over a cup, she looked full in his face for the first time that morning.

Though the sunlight was faint it still bleached the blue from his pupils, leaving them silvery. She could see now that it was not the hat brim which had shadowed his eyes, but a purple stain washing over the skin at the inner corners and lower lids. Had he slept at all last night?

He shivered under her appraisal. The cold was forcing pink to the dimpled tip of his nose and she could see the scattering of white bristles on his chin in the stark sunlight.

Then their interrupted conversation surged on, the urgency in her voice this time.

"John, you talk like you made these choices about us by yourself. But I made them too."

She wanted him to see how it was from her side.

"When I first looked up Andrea Gutierrez' file for you, I chose to cross that line to join you. I wanted to cross over to join you. Just like I wanted to hold you. Like I still want to."

She took a sip of coffee to steady her voice. Her shoulder against his, she turned her head so that her breath would press directly into his ear.

"I messed up, John. I know that now. I knew what Snow did to you, how he tricked me. I should have told you the minute I saw him."

She desperately needed him to get this, if only she could say it right.

"But somehow, I thought… well, I don't know. I thought if I could catch him by myself, arrest him… I don't know, bring him down by myself. That somehow then I could finally pay you back for what I let him do to you."

Her voice hitched over a suppressed sob.

"I shouldn't have kept you in the dark, John. But I did. And I'm sorry. That's all. John, I'm just so sorry."

She wanted to touch him, press his cheek against hers, but she held back.

"John, I can understand if you feel you can't trust me anymore. Then, yeah, you need to stop coming around, I guess."

The cup was shaking in her hand, the steam escaping through the little hole in the top, its heat scalding her upper lip. She tipped the cup to her face, but didn't take a sip, wanting to be ready for his reply.

His voice was low and firm, reverberating in her head.

"I trust you, Joss. And I want to keep coming around, if you'll have me."

Without a smile, she nodded. Then she sighed heavily.

"No way out for us then, is there, John?"

"None. Ever. I hope."

xxxxxxxxx

_11:43 a.m._

Plans set for an early evening meeting with Taylor, the two walked away from the station house to the far end of the pocket-sized park. The cold curled up under their coats, erasing the last of the caffeine buzz.

She didn't invite John for dinner or ask him to spend the night. The joint conversation with Taylor would be enough for now.

They tossed their half-full cups into a trash container at the park entrance, but lingered there for another moment.

She leaned against the low wrought-iron fence that enclosed the park, feeling its pointed pickets pricking her back through the layers of her coat.

John studied her face, scanning her eyes, her mouth, the diamonds in her earlobes. Then he approached her, clutching the hat behind him as he closed the distance between them. A faint breeze ruffled the steely tuft of hair above his brow.

She wanted him to kiss her here, in the open.

He touched his lips lightly to her cheek, leaving a warm imprint against the chilly skin. She felt him relax the heated weight of his body against her for a moment.

But then he pulled away. His gloved hand grazed hers as he turned toward the exit.

"Tonight."

"Tonight."


End file.
